2009/04/29

Defaultism

Three decades ago, a software company named Microsoft successfully started to use a new marketing device: the OEM license. With a pre-installed OS on you new-bought PC, users didn't think anymore about which OS to use - the default, pre-installed OS did indeed meet much requirements, so why should you ever take the effort of looking further?

Much has changed since then, but one thing has not: users are still using mainly the software bundled with the computer or OS, until it lacks important possibilities or they already have experience with a piece of software not present by default. Of course, I am guilty of this behavior as well: back in the days I was still using Windows, I started using a Linux distro because I was very sure it was better. But I became disappointed: as an unexperienced user, not all peripherals did work right out of the box, and messing with configuration files in Vi is quite difficult if all you ever worked with was Dreamweaver. I didn't start using Linux until I got a smooth working distribution out of the box by default settings (or by few and very easy configuration). This behavior I call defaultism.

Most of the Linux users don't act that way. At least, they think they don't. Because they install an OS that's not bundled with the computer by default. After some playing around with desktop enivronments they start looking around and they start discovering the shell. And more and more they become aware of the powerful possibilities. But this is where it ends for the most people.
For most Linux distributions, BASH (the GNU Bourne Again Shell) is default. And it's a pretty good one. It's powerful, relatively easy to use, there is a lot of documentation about it on the internet and - hey, it's default! Sometimes users try other shells like the C shell, the Korn shell, TCSH or ZSH. However, by default, the shells aren't configured the way Bash is. So they experience the shell as "difficult", say it has a "lack of possibilities" or isn't "accessible" enough. All because a decent configuration file is absent.

Last months I've become enthusiast about a particular shell - ZSH. But not before I got a useful .zshrc file - the ZSH config file you have to store in your home directory to make it useful. ZSH is much faster than Bash, extremely configurable and available on nearly every Unix-box. Including Mac. Including BSD. Including every Linux distro I've known so far.

Right now I discover I'm falling back into defaultism again - all I do is making some minor tweaks to existing zsh config files to get it working my way. I don't dive deep into the zshrc file structure to fine-tune it to my wishes. Again, I'm sticking with default settings.

Same story with Vim: I discovered Vim, got used to the basics and became very excited about the ease and efficiency of use. Still I didn't dive into the configuration to make it even more useful. I didn't explore all possibilities but a few - although they're very useful and even now Vim outperforms any other editor I've ever used. But still I stick to defaults.

"Never change a winning team" is well-known, but applied somewhat too easy. I think as computer users, sometimes we don't know whether we're winning or not.

Definitely, in many cases we know. As a beginning C programmer, I knew I wasn't winning when I din't use Makefiles. As a decent company, you know you're not winning when you don't have a website (Besides, are you decent at all without a website?). But in that case, as soon as you will get the opportunity, you will leap up and make sure the winning gear will be in house - before losing even more.
However, sometimes we don't know whether we're winning or not. I never knew I was not winning when I used Linux without using the shell. Until I experienced the advantages. I never knew I was not winning while sticking to Eclipse or gedit. Until I discovered the advantages of Vim. And I'm aware I will be winning when I set applications to my preferences.

Undoubtedly there are improvements out there still unknown to me. Everytime I choose the non-defaultist's way there are. So I got to keep my eyes open for the non-default way to keep winning.

(P.S. wanna get excited too about ZSH?
ZSH: the last shell you'll ever need (Fried CPU)
ZSH for productivity (Prashblog)
Phil!'s ZSH prompt
ZSH description from ArchLinux wiki)

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